Your Song
by ikffrox
Summary: A series of songs tying together a love story.  /chapter 1: Before he could halt his arms, he was reaching out and tugging her to him, and they both sunk into an awkward embrace, shaking and knees and tears dripping onto denim and khaki./


**Author's Note**

Hi. First foray into the JN fandom. Please be kind and constructive in reviews. All chapters have a song, the title of which is the title of the chapter. I'd advise listening to the song while reading, as I listen to the song while I'm writing.

Thanks. Much love and peace.

**I do not profit from this work of fiction, nor do I own any recognizable characters, places, or ideas. Apply to all future chapters. **

**Chapter One – World At Large**

_The moths beat themselves to death against the lights, adding their breeze to the summer nights. Outside, water like air was great, I didn't know what I had that day. Walk a litter farther to another plan, you said that you did, but you didn't understand. _

"James Neutron." The name was met with a swell of reluctant, enthusiastic, and polite applause as the brown-haired boy crossed Lindbergh Elementary School's small wooden stage.

"Congratulations, young man. Good luck," Principal Willoughby smiled widely, thrusting a rolled up piece of paper in Jimmy's hands before patting him on the back.

"Brian Pakovski…finally."

As Jimmy sat back down in his seat, holding his elementary school diploma, his eyes were drawn to the line of students still awaiting their diplomas.

"Bertha Quinlan."

The tall brunette sashayed to the middle of the stage, something that would have fueled Jimmy's dreams for months had it not been for…

Her.

Bright green eyes caught his and his face turned red, looking away. He still hadn't told her. They'd been dancing around it for months; years, if he was being honest with himself.

6th grade graduation shouldn't feel like saying goodbye.

"Brittany Robertson."

He hadn't told anyone the other secret, the one only he and his parents knew, the reason why this entire ceremony felt like goodbye.

It was too hard to say it. The truth lodged in his throat when he had tried to tell Sheen and Carl the day before. He ended up telling them that he had to clean his lab, and that they should leave.

Which was true. Jimmy just didn't say the part about having to clean his lab _out_.

"Bolbi Stroganovsky."

His eyes began to burn.

"Courtney Tyler."

He dug his fingernails into his palm, sure that Menninger would have some choice words to say about self-destructiveness. The fire behind his eyes subsided.

"Cynthia Vortex."

She stepped forward, her blonde hair loose for the first time in what seemed like forever. It slipped off her shoulders like strands of gold, catching and spinning the light. A gracious smile curved her pink lips as she accepted her rolled-up marker of accomplishment, and with a look at the audience, never at Jimmy, she walked off the stage.

He could hear the friendly clapping of his classmates, but his hands were still balled up in anxiety. Try as he might, he couldn't uncurl his hands until…

"Carlton Wheezer."

Haltingly, he brought his hands together as if for the first time, regret pouring over him.

"Ladies and gents, I present to you, your graduating class! You are officially now junior-high students!" the principal excitedly said.

The roar of relief and exhilaration crashed around Jimmy as he mechanically stood up and threw his cap with everyone else.

Goodbye.

* * *

><p>He walked in a fog through the crowd, not aiming for anyone.<p>

Except. Always an exception.

Jimmy collided with another body, warm and living.

"Watch where you're going, Neutron." The words were flung with old emotion; fatigue and anger seeping through the letters sinking through his chest.

"Cindy." She flinched as he stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

"What?" Her green eyes were lined with pink, color high on her cheeks, mouth twisted into a frown.

"You look beautiful." The words were out before he could stop himself.

She stared at him for a moment, incomprehension furrowing her brows. "I…thank you," she ventured, looking down.

They stood there awkwardly for a moment before Jimmy dropped her wrist, remembering the basics of etiquette.

"So…I guess this is goodbye," he said, staring with her at the speckled tile floor.

Coming back to herself, Cindy let out a short bark of laughter, crossing her arms. "Don't be so melodramatic. I'll still be subjected to your presence over the summer, and we'll be back at each other's throats come September."

"I won't be here in September."

Silence reigned between them. Jimmy closed his eyes, shaking his head. He didn't want to say anything, didn't want to tell, just wanted, needed to be gone, like everyone wanted.

"Oh." Cindy's arms came uncrossed, and she twisted her fingers in the cheap polyester fabric of the white graduation gown. She looked lovely in white. "Then I guess this is goodbye."

No questions, no insults. Their truth lay exposed between them for a glimmering moment, before a cry arose behind them.

"James Isaac Neutron, I am _so _proud of you!" Judy Neutron's voice cut through the tension, severing the rope they both were clinging to, pulling each other in.

Jimmy turned. "Mom, hey. Sorry I wandered off, I just…" He turned, and Cindy was gone. "Nevermind."

Judy frowned for a moment before smiling again. "Congratulations, baby," she murmured before pulling him into her arms. He closed his eyes, and let the smell of her perfume, shampoo, and the freshly-laundered green dress overwhelm him instead of visions of gold waterfalls and emerald eyes.

* * *

><p>Cindy ducked into the crowd, the invisible imprint of the boy's fingers burning on the skin of her wrist.<p>

Goodbye.

He was leaving.

She knew he would, eventually. Of all the people in this tiny little town, he would be the one to get out as soon as possible.

But she didn't realize how soon was soon.

Cindy found herself outside the school, leaning against the brick, her bag clutched in one hand. Friends slipped by with their families, questions in their eyes but congratulations in their mouths as they passed her slumped figure.

A honk broke her concentration on the blades of grass surrounding her white sandals.

"Cynthia!" the man yelled out of the rolled-down window of the beaten blue car. Her heart leaped with joy and fear, the two emotions so closely related with Mr. Andrew Vortex.

She walked quickly to the car, and he grinned up at her.

"My, my, Cindy-pie. You're going to break some hearts the way you look now!" he exclaimed, and Cindy's lips tightened, the lost look on Jimmy's face superimposed on that of her father for a brief second. "Hop on in, Cynthia."

She nodded and crossed the front of the car, shocked by his presence. He only ever visited on holidays and that one time when he came to see that disaster of a play. Her mother scared him too much, and he scared Cindy still, memories scarred on her left thigh.

A click, swing, and snap and the door was closed behind her.

"Put on your seatbelt, Cynthia," her father said, eyes on the road and foot easing off the brakes. "Safety first."

* * *

><p>They ended up at a park, the green of the trees tinged with the blood-orange of the sunset.<p>

Andrew Vortex turned the key in the ignition, pulling it out and holding it tightly. "Did your mother not come?" he asked, the lines on his face tight.

"She was busy. She had work." The excuse sounded feeble to her own ears, so she closed her tired, cried-out eyes.

"Bullshit."

"Dad," Cindy protested quietly.

"She didn't even send that butler she's sleeping with, did she?" he asked, anger causing his words to shake.

Her silence was enough of an answer.

"Cynthia…" he began, then swallowed and started again. "Cindy-pie. I've got to talk to you."

* * *

><p>Jimmy sat in the middle of his cleaned out lab, eyes closed and tears dried.<p>

All of his work was packed away in boxes, already hauled up to the surface and loaded into the moving van that was now parked conspicuously in front of their house.

He was hiding from Sheen and Carl, and his parents, and everyone else. They would want to talk. His friends would want to know why he was leaving. His parents would want to talk about stranger danger in the Big City.

Sure enough, a knock echoed through the structure. He had left his large screen in place for when he came back to visit, but had cleared out most of the hardware of his lab, so he slowly stood and walked through the open metal doors, scaled the large ladder that had been discreetly placed for manual use, and, to the beat of the incessant knocking, made his way through the ducts until he was at the door.

Sighing, he twisted the doorknob and prepared himself for Sheen's hysterics and Carl's tears.

Fist raised for knocking, shoulders hunched, and hair falling in front of puffy eyes, Cindy Vortex stood in front of Jimmy.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted out, panic rising in his stomach.

"Where are you going?" she countered softly, her eyes trained on his.

He walked forward; she stepped back. Shutting the door behind him, Jimmy tilted his head and Cindy followed him to the back of the shed. She slid down the wooden building's wall and wrapped her arms around her folded knees, looking up at him expectantly. He mirrored her actions, sitting just close enough that in the shaded grass, he could feel her body warmth just faintly against his left side.

"New York University. Precollege." The words finally solidified what he was doing, giving reality to the foggy dream he had felt like he was walking around in constantly, ever since the letter of acceptance had come back in March. He laughed a humorless laugh, and continued. "It's an experimental program. Middle and high school for intellectually advanced teens. Earn college credit, graduate with a bachelors after 12th grade. I was _personally_ invited by the Dean. Apparently, they've had an eye on me for a while."

Cindy was silent.

"But hey, here's your chance," Jimmy murmured. "You'll be the smartest kid in school now."

Still, Cindy said nothing, blankly staring out at a tree.

Jimmy found himself tracing her face with his eyes as he babbled on. "You always were better than me, anyway. I'm just smart. You're everything. And nobody ever realized it. People always thought I was better. But I'm not. So now you'll get the recognition you deserve."

"Don't leave me." The words were sudden and rushed and broken, and Cindy's neutral expression collapsed.

Before he could halt his arms, he was reaching out and tugging her to him, and they both sunk into an awkward embrace, shaking and knees and tears dripping onto denim and khaki.

The minutes ticked on by as they sat there, crying and holding each other in the small section of the world reserved just for them. Slowly, breaths evened out and eyes fluttered shut, and with the chirping of crickets nearby, they fell asleep wrapped up in regret.

"Jimbo! Jimmy! Where are you?" The call of his father's voice cut through a fitful lull of sleep, and Jimmy slowly pulled away from the blonde girl in his arms. She stirred, and opened blurry, brilliant green eyes.

"What…?" she began, confused, before he could see realization sink in and she sat up. "Oh."

"James!" This yell had an edge of panic, and Jimmy stood up quickly, walking around the small building and greeting his father, who had begun to rap on the wooden door.

"Right here, Dad," he said, causing Hugh to jump and let out a small scream.

"You scared me, son. Thought you ran off. Now make sure you've got everything from your lab. Your flight leaves early tomorrow, so you've got to be bright eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning!"

"Okay. I…just need to check something. I'll be right in," he assured the man with a weak smile.

Grinning, Hugh patted his shoulder and began walking back to the house. "Alright, but hurry! Your mother made three different kinds of _pie_ for dessert!"

Shaking his head, Jimmy turned around. "Cindy?" A moment, then she appeared from around the corner, resolutely looking everywhere but at him. He dug out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, flipped to the back of the printed page, and called out, "Goddard!"

The robot slunk out of the shadows of the trees, trotting up to Jimmy's feet. "Spying, huh?" he muttered. "Pen, boy."

Goddard's back opened and a pen emerged, which Jimmy grabbed and turned back to the lab entrance. He scrawled several lines at the top of the 8.5 x 11, and then ripped it off the rest of the paper.

"Here." He held it out to Cindy, who gingerly took it from his outstretched hand. "It's my dorm address. And my email. And my new phone number. Just…you know…in case." His face was on fire, he was sure. "If you want me. I mean, if you want it, to talk to me. Or whatever."

"Thank you." Her response was nearly a whisper, and it both hurt and healed. She folded it in half and slipped it in her front pants pocket, and then reached out.

He held out the paper and pen to her and she pressed them against the wooden structure, scripting swirling words with the black ink.

"My email and phone number," she explained, handing him back the half sheet and pen.

Jimmy glanced to the side and tossed the pen to Goddard, who caught it and swallowed it, returning the machinery to the source. Then he folded the paper in quarters and dropped it in the breast pocket of his pressed dress shirt, tails untucked and tearstains splotched across the front.

"I should go," she said, twisting her hands.

"I wish you wouldn't."

"I wish _you_ wouldn't," was her response, partnered with a sad smile.

She reached out and hugged him, and Jimmy noticed that they were about the same height now, not counting his hair, which he had begun trimming more.

Cindy began pulling away. Her lips were right there. He could just move three inches. Four. Now six.

And now she was walking away, through the wooden gate to his yard, across the street, through the doorway to the pink house, up the staircase, hurling through the doorway to her room, crashing on her bed, and losing herself to tears.

Jimmy stood still, unspoken words on the tip of his tongue.

He let them out in the late spring dusk.

"I love you."

* * *

><p>Late that night, the only sound in the empty house was the click-clack of her shaking fingers typing. She entered in the first address, printed neatly on the business card her father had handed her after dropping her off at her house.<p>

She would be leaving behind her new home and all her friends. Libby…

Biting her lip, Cindy clicked "Get Directions."

…_[Directions from Retroville, Texas to Allentown, Pennsylvania.]_

Hands surer now, in a second window, she retyped her father's new address, and then the second one, chicken-scratched with a pen on the back of a Lindbergh Elementary diploma for "James Isa-".

Her mother and the butler had left for a third "business trip" last week. Jimmy was moving to New York. There would be nothing left here for her.

Resolute, she hit the enter button.

…_[Directions from Allentown, Pennsylvania to New York, New York.]_

A few hours' drive. That's all.

Her decision was made.

_I know that starting over is not what life's all about, but my thoughts were so loud, I couldn't hear my mouth. My thoughts were so loud, I couldn't hear my mouth. My thoughts were so loud I…_


End file.
